A priest who was suspended by the Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama last week, after he “abandoned his assignment in the diocese,” has tuned up in Italy, accompanied by an 18-year-old woman.
The Sheriff of Mobile County reported that the young woman had traveled with Father Alex Crow “on her own free will, and that she “insisted that there was no intimate relationship.” At present there are no grounds for any criminal charge, he said, although the case is still under investigation.
The Archdiocese of Mobile had announced earlier that Father Crow—who disappeared from his parish sometime after celebrating Mass on Sunday, July 30—had been guilty of conduct “totally unbecoming of a priest.” The archdiocese said that the priest’s disappearance had been reported to local law-enforcement officials “due to the circumstances of his departure.”